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cost estimate
March 15, 2012
read complete document (pdf, 54 kb)
Revised March 15, 2012 to include a private sector mandate that CBO failed to identify in the original estimate.
As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on October 20, 2011
The bill would amend and reauthorize most programs in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (the ESEA, commonly referred to, in its most recently reauthorized form, as No Child Left Behind). The underlying authorizations for all of those programs have expired, although most have been reauthorized annually through appropriations legislation. For almost all of the programs, the bill would authorize the appropriation of such sums as may be necessary for fiscal years 2012 through 2016. (These authorizations would automatically be extended one year through 2017, under the General Education Provisions Act.) The bill also would amend and reauthorize the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
CBO estimates that implementing the bill would have discretionary costs of $97.0 billion over the 2012-2016 period, assuming the appropriation of the necessary amounts. Those costs reflect spending from newly authorized funding of $25.6 billion in 2012, rising to $26.5 billion in 2016. The Congress recently cleared the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, however, including funding totaling about $25 billion in the current year for activities similar to those that would be authorized by this bill. Thus, implementing the bill would require only small additional funding for the current year.
Enacting the bill also would increase direct spending by $8 million over the 2012-2021 period; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. Enacting the bill would not affect revenues.
The bill contains no intergovernmental mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments. Those governments would benefit from grants authorized in the bill for elementary and secondary education. Any costs associated with those grants would be incurred voluntarily as a result of complying with conditions of federal assistance.
The bill would impose a private-sector mandate, as defined in UMRA, on parents and guardians of unaccompanied youth by shielding schools from liability that might result from enrolling unaccompanied youth without parental or guardian consent. CBO expects that the costs of the mandate would not exceed the annual threshold established in UMRA for private-sector mandates ($146 million in 2012, adjusted annually for inflation).